Böhme: Sextet in E flat minor, Op. 30

“Who could fail to smile at the winding lyricism that opens both these works, or at the self-possessed fugue that potters gleefully at the end of the Op 109 String Quartet? This is music that simply had to be written, complex music maybe, but with so much to say at so many levels that once you enter its world, you're hooked. Previous recordings of the gorgeous Clarinet Quintet have included two with Karl Leister, though for sheer naturalness, musicality and team spirit, this new production will be hard to beat. Reger's frequent allusions to early musical modes inspire playing of rare sensitivity.
Humour surfaces in the scherzo's rough and tumble, a downward scale idea backed by lively pizzicatos, teasingly discursive and with a sunny, song-like Trio. The slow movement recalls Brahms's Quintet but without the gypsy element, while the theme-and-variation finale reminds us that Reger's homage to Mozart extends beyond the chosen key of A major. The String Quartet is more openly argumentative, especially in the first movement. Hints of Taranto inform the tarantella-like scherzo, whereas the slow movement combines hymnlike nobility with more echoes of Brahms. The closing fugue is the work of a joyful creator drunk on counterpoint, though there's plenty to engage the heart as well as the mind. The Vogler commands a wide range of tonal colour and is ideal for all Doubting Thomases who'd have you believe that Reger is a bore.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010